Four officers, including, from left, Deputy Chief David Colon, Deputy Inspector James Grant and Deputy Chief Eric Rodriguez, were all moved to desk jobs. Deputy Chief Michael Harrington was also placed on modified duty.

Updated April 7, 2016, 5:18pm

4 NYPD officials transferred as part of corruption probe

“No officers have been charged criminally, but law enforcement officials say the issue came up as investigators probe Orthodox Jewish businessmen with ties to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

New York State criminal laws make it a crime for a police officer to accept anything of value as a quid-pro-quo or gratuity.

Investigators will have to determine when a gift from a close friend crosses that line, and whether the acceptance of the gift would be criminal or a departmental violation.

Federal authorities are probing three Orthodox Jewish men for fraud and money laundering. Two of them, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, were involved in a liquor deal that went bad, prompting the investigation.

While probing the men, federal authorities picked up on a wiretap that one of the men, Reichberg, had dealings with high ranking NYPD officers. He is described as a police buff.”

Our Question:

WHO IS THE 3RD MAN BEING INVESTIGATED?

We have our speculations….

From an Article in The New York Times, April 7, 2016

4 New York Officers Are Put on Desk Duty Amid U.S. Corruption Inquiry

“Four high-ranking veterans of theNew York Police Departmentwere pushed into desk jobs on Thursday in a first wave of discipline connected with a continuing federal public corruption inquiry.

Two of the four officers were placed on modified duty, stripped of their guns and badges and taken off patrol, Police CommissionerWilliam J. Brattonsaid, and two others were transferred from their current assignment.

“The investigation is examining the conduct of current and former N.Y.P.D. officers and several others,” Mr. Bratton said at a news conference at Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan to announce technological advances the department has made in recent years.

“We will follow the leads wherever they take us,” he said.

A federal grand jury is hearing evidence in the case that wasinitiatedin December 2013 by the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau and later was joined by an inquiry initiated by prosecutors from the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, officials said.”

Commenter, LostMessiah 4.7.16

Heads Begin To Roll In FBI’s NYPD Corruption Investigation

“The commanding officer of the Upper East Side’s 19th Precinct and another top cop have been stripped of their guns and badges amid the widening fallout from afederal investigation into possible corruptionin the upper ranks of the NYPD. The FBI is questioning some 20 high-ranking officers about gifts, possibly including international vacations and diamonds, from Upper West Side developer Jona Rechnitz and Borough Park power broker Jeremey Reichberg, both prominent backers of Mayor Bill de Blasio.”

Further down the article:

“The Police Department also has a history of granting favors to ultra-Orthodox Jews in Borough Park, Brooklyn who constitute an influential voting bloc. The Post reports that Deputy Inspector Grant served as commanding officer of the 72nd Precinct in Sunset Park, and had doled out hundreds of police captains’ union cards with his name on them and the message “Please extend all courtesy to the holder of this card.”

The precinct is known among cops as Fort Surrender, in memory of a 1978 riot by Hasidic Jews who overtook the station house and injured dozens of officers.

In the mid-1990s, Brooklyn South commander George Brown was reassigned after he refused to release a teenager arrested for outstanding parking tickets in the face of another riot at the precinct, according toNYPD Confidential. The blogalso reportedthat it is routine for connected Borough Park figures to have their tickets fixed.

And in 2006, former 66th Precinct commanding officerJoseph Espositowasforced to apologizeforallegedly yelling“get the fucking Jews out of here” amid a protest by hundreds of Hasidim upset over the arrest of a 75-year-old man for failing to pull over when police tried to stop him for talking on his cellphone. Protestersreportedlyassaulted two cops, lit bonfires in the street, and smashed and burned police cars. Only three people were arrested.

De Blasio has so fardeclined to returnthe more than $50,000 raised by Rechnitz for his campaign, saying the investigation needs to play out before he makes a decision. He has denied accepting non-campaign gifts from the two businessmen, and said they have not contributed to his reelection.”

“Federal authorities are probing three Orthodox Jewish men for fraud and money laundering. Two of them, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, were involved in a liquor deal that went bad, prompting the investigation.”

We are not quite sure how to approach what you are suggesting. We have people researching that liquor deal, which is what we think, is the connecting dot. We can’t find much about it though. Someone posted that a small liquor store would not yield enough in profit to make it valuable. That could be right except that there is a significant markup on liquor. There are a few unknowns. FM seemed to be working on something having to do with Kosher Certification, and SY’s nursing home suits and debacles. We did some legal digging and many of those suits settled, some of them after years of litigating, suddenly settlement. But, this is all speculation. The forward seemed to think that SY was Diversified but then some comment on FB suggested that Diversified was located in Pennsylvania. A check of the address indicates that the poster there was simply wrong. So, we are stumped. We are not sure that you are wrong but we are also considering the possibility that this had to do with Allure and we are now looking into connections between Allure and Braunstein (father and son) because these guys bid against each other in Nursing home deals (about 5 of them) which has also been reported. FM had a lot going on at one time. Hard to pinpoint the exact trigger. Connecting SY to today’s events is a challenge, unless you have something more concrete.